~ A Joy Warrior's Journey
The moist breeze carried a kindness so deep, she thought,
that it surely came from the Great River of Compassion itself,
riding with it over the rocks of pain, past the shadows on its banks,
around the bend into a sudden shaft of light and understanding,
a knowing that it’s all love. Even the rocks and the shadows.
I wait at the crossing as the train rolls through.
I’m in no hurry; I like the looks of its colors
blurring across the raindrop-splattered windshield
of my car, and its sound, all motion and determined.
A couple miles down the road, I pass the old barn,
once the heart of a dairy farm that served the whole county,
its stories still pouring out all its cracks and doors to say
how you should have seen it when it was in its glory.
Then come the fields and the view of sky, roiling now with clouds,
the neat rows of stubble beneath them waiting to be plowed under
in preparation for the new season’s crop. I can feel their impatience.
Soon, I say to them. Even now, the sun is breaking through. See?
“Hey!” they shouted in their loud yellow voices.
I had seen them as I whizzed past, but I saw them
as if I’d seen them a hundred times before and not,
as was truly the case, for the very first time this year.
“Hey! You! Hey!” As soon as their call reached me,
I stopped the car, backed up, pulled over, turned on my
flashers in case anyone else came by, and leaped out.
“Hello! Hello!” I sang to them. “You are so beautiful!”
They stood there, beaming, glad someone noticed
and pretending they didn’t care if anyone noticed at all.
But their gladness betrayed them. They wiggled with joy
and proudly posed when I asked if I could take their picture.
To speak of some things is to profane them.
I could try to tell you of the symphony that plays
through my body when I am here, in this moment,
in this place, full of the shimmering jade and emerald joy
of emergence from the night. I could try to say
how I am renewed again just breathing this air.
But as I said, to speak of some things is to profane them.
Some beauty is too deep for words.
Because they are poems, they can speak for themselves.
But pour a cup of tea before you sit to listen;
some of them can go on for hours.
This is the week that the clocks leaped ahead and the first flowers of the season burst on the scene. Spring has come at last, and I am downright giddy over its arrival. A small crocus opens in my garden. Along the roadside, the first coltsfoot beams up at me. A robin arrives to sit in that tree, right there.
I don’t know why—for a lot of reasons, I suppose—but I am deeply moved by all of this. Maybe it’s the contrast with the ice that was so recently here. Maybe its the emergence of color and birdsong after a long night of darkness and silence. Whatever the cause, I am moved by these small graces, these restorers of hope.
It’s not that life doesn’t place stars in the darkest nights. We’re never without at least pinpoints of light. And I clung to them all throughout the winter, believe me, and gave thanks that they were there. But now! So suddenly, it is spring, and I am overwhelmed with the world’s overnight transformation,
Maybe it’s a sign, I say to myself, smiling at how I reach for the wisdom of superstition, Maybe it’s like waking to find yourself inside a giant, luminous rainbow. How would that be for a sign?
I stand in the warm sun listening. The birds are returning, and from the creek such a chorus of frogs! Small graces. Priceless ones.
I lifted layers of oak leaves from the flower gardens and pulled out the tiny weeds. The soil smelled moist and rich, and the thick, green sprouts reaching up from it stood eager and proud. I think it wouldn’t hurt to put out some hummingbird nectar this week. You never know. They might fly in and need a good drink.
Sometimes I stop in my tracks and look around in wonder. “I get to be here,” I whisper to the spring air. “I get to be here.”
And so do you! I wish you Happy Spring, my friend.
May small graces bless your week and fill your heart with gentle joy.
Warmly,
Susan
Her pastel colors and sweet perfumes belie her.
There’s nothing subtle about Spring. Just look
at the way she arrives—oh, on that darling white pony
leaving coltsfoot to show where it danced—but that aside
look how all at once she’s here and everything is in motion.
I walked along the main road, heading toward the creek,
not another human in sight. There, staring up at me
from the other side of the guardrail, was a bed of coltsfoot.
And I wasn’t even thinking about them them today.
Good things often happen like that, sliding into your world
when you’re least expecting them, as you no doubt have noticed.
The coltsfoot and the crocuses pop up at almost the same time
as each other every year, with the crocuses just a smidgen ahead.
They’re like hope fulfilled, signs that I’ve lived through the winter
yet again. And I’m glad for that. I have a prayer on file
asking to stay at least until I get to see the sky-blue irises
that I planted last fall. And now that I’ve made it this far,
I want to amend that. I want to see the whole parade.
This is the only world like this, you know.
There’s no other Earth, no matter how far you go.
And we get to live in it, for this flicker of a lifetime,
and then to carry it with us past time itself.
I walked on the raised pathway through the oak grove
listening to a near-deafening chorus of frog song,
so varied in pitch and rhythm as it glided through the trees,
whose feet the rains had come to wash for spring.
Think of the energy they must summon to pull their thick sap
all the way from their roots up to the tips that touch the sky
and to make leaves and acorns from nothing but that and light.
They deserve this drenching and this clamorous serenade.
Only this one, this Earth. I let the sight of these oaks,
well over their ankles in water, soak into my being. I dissolve
in the scene and wear its smell. I taste the cool of it.
I will remember you, I say to it as I leave. I will remember.
Someone has to go first, to risk the hazards,
to scout the terrain and send back reports.
Volunteer or elected, however it came to be,
here they find themselves, both responsibility
and privilege resting on their shoulders.
This year, as in all the years I’ve watched,
the same clan has sent them.
These are the ones who step forth.
Upright and tall they arrive, wearing
the colors of a king. And rightly so.
I salute them, my toes curling in glee
as I drink in their thirst-quenching photons.
They are here, I whisper to the sky.
They are here. They are here.
The sun warms my back. It knows.